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Friday, January 30, 2015

I'm a Digital Citizen. Are you?

Early memories of my life filter through my mind. I'm staying in during recess in fifth grade in order to draw pictures in Paint on the library computers. I'm in middle school using our library computer catalog to find books on mythology for a language project. I'm a junior in high school setting up my first email account. This is when it happened; in the year 2000, I became a digital citizen.

My admittance to the digital world happened when I hit submit and created my first Yahoo email account. I gathered my friends' emails and we soon starting sending chain letters and how-much-do-you-know-about-me surveys. Then one of us found ICQ. This was my introduction to instant messaging (though to pacify my parents I could only talk to real people I knew). From there it grew to a second email, accounts on different websites, and as time went on, a presence on social media sites. And now I am a pretty involved digital citizen.

Are you a digital citizen? What got you started? How involved are you in the digital world now? And what does your digital presence say about you as a person?

Try this: Search for yourself in a search engine. Try adding a state or city where you lived to your name. Try adding a school or business that you are connected with. Is the information that comes up something you are proud of? Or does it paint you in a negative light?

Don't worry if you can't find yourself. That just means you are a very private digital citizen. Add if you find yourself but wish that you didn't, go into your social media sites and adjust your privacy settings. If you find yourself on other peoples pages/accounts, you are well within your rights as a digital citizen to ask them to remove any pictures or information that you would rather not have shared.

Most of all, make sure that you make good choices as you are posting and sharing information about yourself.

If you'd like more information on digital citizenship and how to be a good citizen, check out some of the links below.